Barry Marshall

Barry Marshall

Drank bacteria to prove he'd get an ulcer.

Everyone told him that bacteria couldn't survive in the human stomach. But Barry Marshall, an Australian doctor who had spent his childhood building fireworks and operating on his pet dog, had other ideas. Marshall knew that bacteria caused ulcers, and he had watched his patients make full recoveries after antibiotic therapy. When he tried to publish his findings, however, the medical fraternity laughed him out of their conferences.

So Barry Marshall drank some bacteria. In just days, the crippling symptoms of gastroenteritis began to kick in, and finally confirmed that he was right—and in trouble. Marshall biopsied his own stomach, isolated the bacteria, wolfed down some antibiotics, and went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology.

Werner Forssmann

Werner Forssmann

Shoved a catheter into his own heart.

In 1929, heart surgery was still in its infancy, and physicians struggled to treat cardiac patients invasively. Werner Forssmann suspected that he could reach the heart by snaking a hollow tube through his patients' veins, but colleagues in Eberswald, Germany, told him that the procedure would undoubtedly prove fatal.

A nurse agreed to sneak him sterile supplies as long as he promised to perform the procedure on her instead of on himself. Forssmann agreed, anesthetized his nurse, and, in one of the greatest switcheroos in medical history, cut into his own arm and blindly guided the catheter into his heart. Triumphant and still alive, Forssmann hobbled down to the X-Ray lab to show off his handiwork.

Years later, after he promised never to knock out his nurse and perform surgery on himself ever, ever again, he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine.